How to SCP (Secure Copy) files using PHP5

This article will explain how to SCP (Secure Copy) files using PHP5. SCP is a secure method of copying files from one host to another using the SSH protocol. Here is a snippet of working code to help get you started!

$hostname = "target_host";
$username = "root";
$password = "password";
$sourceFile = "test.txt";
$targetFile = "/root/test.txt";
$connection = ssh2_connect($hostname, 22);
ssh2_auth_password($connection, $username, $password)
ssh2_scp_send($connection, $sourceFile, $targetFile, 0777);

This is a very simple script that does 3 things:

1) Connect to the host target_host

2) Authenticate with the host using root as the username and password for the password.

3) Copy the local file test.txt to /root/test.txt on the target machine.
Note:  0777 sets the permission on the target file so that it can be read/write/executed by anyone.